Press release: Clean Coalition Executive Director Craig Lewis receives award for clean energy leadership
The nonprofit People’s Action for Clean Energy recognizes Mr. Lewis’s bold and creative leadership in promoting clean local energy and a modern grid.
December 4, 2017
NEWS RELEASE: Clean Coalition Executive Director Craig Lewis receives award for clean energy leadership
The nonprofit People’s Action for Clean Energy recognizes Mr. Lewis’s bold and creative leadership in promoting clean local energy and a modern grid
MENLO PARK, CA – The Clean Coalition is pleased to announce that Founder and Executive Director Craig Lewis has been awarded the 2017 Judi Friedman Clean Energy Leadership Award by People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE).
The award, given for bold and creative leadership in the field of clean energy, was presented to Mr. Lewis at the PACE annual meeting on Saturday, December 2, in Connecticut. Mr. Lewis delivered the keynote address at the meeting prior to being given the award.
“I am honored to receive this award from an organization that is actually making clean local energy happen,” said Mr. Lewis. “PACE is going beyond advocacy to develop viable plans that move the State of Connecticut to 100% renewable energy in a way that should be followed by states across the country to ensure that communities everywhere are more sustainable and resilient.”
“PACE is excited to present Craig Lewis with the Judi Friedman Clean Energy Leadership Award and to have Craig give the keynote address at the 2017 PACE annual meeting,” said PACE Director Mark Scully. “Craig possesses a unique blend of technical knowledge, creativity, and drive, and has built a highly capable team at the Clean Coalition. PACE has benefitted immeasurably from Craig’s assistance in promoting clean local energy and a modern grid in Connecticut.”
Under Mr. Lewis’s leadership, the Clean Coalition and its partners have achieved meaningful results in advancing clean local energy and a modern grid. Since the organization’s founding in 2009, the Clean Coalition has facilitated more than 2 gigawatts of clean local energy program capacity – enough to provide peak power to about 2 million American homes.
The Clean Coalition has made this significant impact with a range of innovative solutions, including:
- Community Microgrid projects around the country, including in the Peninsula Advanced Energy Community (PAEC) Initiative in San Mateo County, California. PAEC is accelerating the planning, approval, and deployment of clean local energy and will showcase the benefits of Community Microgrids and other replicable approaches to modernizing the electric grid.
- Feed-In Tariff (FIT) programs in California, Colorado, New York, and Vermont that use a market-responsive pricing mechanism to rapidly and effectively deploy clean local energy while ensuring optimum value for ratepayers. The most recent Clean Coalition FIT designincludes a dispatchability adder to encourage energy storage deployment, making renewable energy available when it is most valuable – not just when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
- Solar Siting Surveys that help utilities, municipalities, and communities assess the potential for local solar generation.
- Innovative Distribution Resources Planning (DRP) that requires California’s largest utilities to proactively plan for and deploy distributed energy resources, such as local renewables and energy storage. The Clean Coalition is leveraging its policy expertise with on-the-ground partners to replicate DRP in other states.
- A precedent-setting interconnection policy in California that makes it quicker and cheaper to connect clean local energy projects to the grid. The policy was adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a new national standard.
With its game-changing program and policy initiatives, the Clean Coalition is unleashing clean local energy to deliver an unparalleled trifecta of economic, environmental, and resilience benefits to communities across the country.
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About the Clean Coalition
The Clean Coalition is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and a modern grid through technical, policy, and project development expertise. The Clean Coalition drives policy innovation to remove barriers to procurement and interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER) – such as local renewables, advanced inverters, demand response, and energy storage – and we establish market mechanisms that realize the full potential of integrating these solutions. In addition to being active in numerous proceedings before state and federal agencies throughout the United States, the Clean Coalition collaborates with utilities, community choice aggregation programs, municipalities, and other jurisdictions to create near-term deployment opportunities that prove the technical and economic viability of local renewables and other DER.
About People’s Action for Clean Energy
PACE is a public health and environmental organization formed in 1973 by a group of concerned Connecticut citizens to promote the development of alternative, renewable sources of energy, encourage the efficient use of energy, develop a spirit of conservation among Connecticut residents, and challenge Connecticut’s commitment to nuclear power and nuclear weapons Through its house tours, publications, radiation monitoring, and recognition of environmental leaders, PACE has educated countless members of the public on energy issues. PACE is the largest all-volunteer organization in the state engaged with these issues, and its members are active at public events, legislative hearings, and environmental forums, both in person and on state and local television and radio. Judi Friedman led PACE for 43 years and was a passionate and tireless advocate for clean energy; this award is given in her memory.
Contact
Rosana Francescato
Communications Director
rosana@clean-coalition.org
650-308-9046
